As an owner of 6 cats and a foster home for a Sacramento Cat Rescue group, I have a passion for the little furry critters. I especially enjoyed visiting the Rome Cat refuge "Torre Argentina" for several hours and sharing the difficulties in caring for abandoned and abused felines. I discovered that the problems and issues are the same worldwide - all you have to do is change the city or countries name. While walking in Rome I also had the opportunity to see one of the "Rome Cat Ladies" - a group of women who feed feral cat colonies. During our conversation (mainly through the use hand waving and body language since she spoke no English and my Italian is extremely limited) this lady bravely defended the food from the marauding pigeons while the feral cats ate.